Well, reckon it's time for the rest of my length~! Be prepared, I got one for each penis-tentacle. :3

The Pen Is My Sword (my main litblog)http://www.thepenismysword.com

That Bastard On (personal opinions, whinery, my second most popular blog. :3 )http://on.thepenismysword.com

KAOS: Chaos Party Radio (kinda down right now - The Hooligans hasn't put out any new content. :/ )http://www.kaosparty.com

Sooth(e) Your Freaking Beast (musics I find from the Youtubes)http://sooth.thepenismysword.com

Man-Flavored Milk (I type like a maniac and post strange videos. It actually started with an idea at first to be an ARG where it slowly descends into madness, then I kinda went "meh" and just stayed there)http://mfm.thepenismysword.com

Netflix This! (lists that answer the question "What Should I Watch Tonight On Netflix?" )http://netflixthis.thepenismysword.com

The Bellingham Jerk (restaurant reviews from local places 'round here in Bellingham, and what got me started into blogging. :D )http://jerk.thepenismysword.com

Nerf All The Things (The Hooligans away from KAOS, and where we also post our modeling pics from local photographers and such.)http://www.nerfallthethings.com

Messed Up and Violent (my blog at Goodreads)http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6541268.Thomas_Duder/blog

Well, 2012 wasn't as profitable as 2011, but it certainly was active! It's not like I'm closin' shop for christmas or somethin'...but it's sometimes good to just look back on the year as it passes by and realize how much content you've put out.

Now to get back to postin' up random lyrics, poetry, and The Hooligans season 1 goodness. <3

For what it's worth, I thank you all for your attention and your time. I can only hope that I've been half as entertaining as all y'all have led me to believe...and I thank you for that, as well.

I shall endeavor to continue to work hard going into 2013, to achieve something closer to consistency in my posting schedule, and in giving you guys even more reasons to continue reading me. :D

Thursday, October 11, 2012

A sharp gasp of air caught their attention and Dash spun
in place ready for battle, lost as he was in bloodlust and madness,
scratching at his arm with a humongous grin plastered on his
jagged-toothed maw. Frank turned his head slowly, looking at Dawn
for a moment with a single eye before it rolled up into the back of
his head, a second pupil showing up from the bottom. For a moment
Frank had his face towards the sky, flickering his tongue with an
inhuman speed, confusing the young Daywatch as she backed up slowly
until she realized in a flash of insight what was happening.

Despite his monstrous nature, his ability to survive
and thrive amongst monstrosities too horrible for description, he was
still a human with a human's body...and this man had just devoured
the entire lifetime of another man, alongside the Demon he had bonded
himself with. That life, the basic energy of living, was beginning
to spill out of Frank and this strange tableau was the outcome of
such a thing.

He didn't just devour Jerome, he had devoured the very
foundation of his existence! Already her memory of Jerome Valken was
becoming fuzzy, and she wondered silently if she would survive this
encounter...and if so, to check her journals to see if they, too,
were affected by this phenomenon.

Leaving behind strange after-images of himself, Frank
strode towards Dawn, ignoring Dash as the troll suddenly focused on
the flesh of his arm, scratching at himself harder. Frank shook his
head, then grinned at Dawn as the tall troll-gene came up behind him,
still scratching.

"It's alright, Daywatch. Go report to the
Grand Magus it's done. I'm going on a month-long vacation, but it's
done, to the very last point...as you've witnessed."

Having learned wariness at an early age, Dawn kept her
eyes on both Shopkeepers, watching Dash as he walked closer to the
both of them as she asked, "I don't understand it. All this
fighting and...strangeness...and sir Dash hasn't undergone any of his
fabled Maximum Troll? No berserker rage beyond this action and
violence dependency?"

Frank chuckled, shaking his head, "Nope. We seem
to have gotten away with this without havin' to have THAT happen!
Besides, if he WAS going to go Maximum Troll, he always says
somethin' stupid and nonsensical first. Then he starts tearing bits
of himself off and...well, things get messy and violent and bad,
y'know?"

"Hey, what's all this skin doin' on my arm?"
Dash frowned at his forearm as he tore off a sizable patch of scaled,
green flesh away from his bleeding muscle. Frank responded the
moment he heard Dash ask the nonsensical question by diving forward
and tackling the young Daywatch out of the way, narrowly dodging the
patch of skin as it sprouted an eye from the center of it's mass,
claws sprang forth from it's raggedly-torn edge, and spun through the
air at high velocity, intent on buzz-sawing it's way through either
of them only to find empty air.

Dash roared, the scales on his face forming a armored
mask and tearing apart all within the blink of an eye, his eyes
completely laserlight red.

He had lost his humanity, his sentience, and his sanity
to the Maximum Troll, a berserker fury that drove all troll-gened
humanoids, or so the legends said.

The patch of skin landed on the ground and immediately
skittered towards the couple on the ground. Frank, yelling, lashed
out with a foot and sent a wave of ki energy at the skin patch,
sending it flying backwards between the troll's legs, getting himself
and Dawn up to their feet as Dash slowly stomped towards them, his
jaw unhinging and tearing the armored mask on his face apart once
again to roar at them.

With an almost casual grace, Dash tore his left hand off
and flung it forward, the bloodless stump immediately producing an
eyeball on a stalk as the hand skittered delicately on it's claws
towards them, the clawed skin patch catching itself and joining the
allies Dash had begun to produce. Immediately regenerating his left
hand, he tore his right hand off at the wrist as well, roaring as
that hand immediately formed a fist, connect to his wrist by a
streamer of blood that hovered in mid-air of it's own accord,
immediately regenerating his right fist as well.

The blood of the troll, spilled on the ground earlier
and still within the water, began to roll towards his body as he made
his slow way towards them, his maw extending further as his body
began to undergo further internal transformations.

Daywatch Tanelin and Frank backed up, Frank keeping his
own body between the monsters and the Magus behind him. He grinned
and relaxed suddenly, much to Dawn's confusion.

"M-Magus Todd?! What in the blue blazes are you
DOING?" She looked from the man to the monster and back again,
"What CAN we do?"

Dawn blinked, biting the tip of her tongue in her haste
to yell, "WHAT?! OWowowowowowowow-owie!"

Then it happened - the clash of after-images and furious
troll, the two Shopkeepers roaring in their fury.

A slash of the claw was met with a strike to the wrist,
then the human's own clawed fingers tearing at his chest. Dash
closed his eyes and literally shook the pain off, ignoring Frank for
a second as the human slammed a boot-heel upon the patch of skin,
squashing it to the ground. Though it would regenerate, it would
take more than a few moments to do that, and in the meantime he had
turned his attention back to Dash with a series of rapid-fire jabs to
his eyes.

Dash roared and slammed his fist in an overhead
strike, feeling it connect solidly. Chuckling wickedly he opened up
his mammoth-sized hand only to find nothing, then roared in pain as
Frank's rapid-fire jabs, the Overdrive safely at level 1 but his own
strength and speed sped up after feeding on Jerome's soul, caught him
in the side of the face. Sweeping his claws again, he didn't even
have enough time to register the miss as Frank's fists once again
pummeled against the left side of his face this time.

Dawn yelped, a magic circle erupting around her as she
considered her considerable store of spells, keeping an eye on the
hand as it tip-toed on it's claws, clacking it's way amongst the
chairs and tables by the side of the pool. Concentrating, a magic
circle erupted around her as she prepared her spell, murmuring under
her breath the words necessary for it.

Hearing Dash and Frank's exertions, she charged the
spell and watched the hand as it drew closer, finally making it's
play by leaping directly onto a plastic-strapped chair, bouncing onto
a table's edge and leaping for her face.

"Talaver'n!" her voice rang with power as she
activated the spell, waving a hand in front of her and releasing a
cold spray of snow from her palm.

The hand froze up solid as it passed through the icy
sheet, narrowly hitting the Daywatch as she stepped to the side and
let it bounce along the ground.

Nodding pointedly, a mental salute to the fearsome
thing, she turned and immediately backed up as Dash rammed Frank
towards her, the smaller man gripped with both hands. Roaring and
kicking at empty air, Frank shook violently within the troll's grasp
as they both sent tables and chairs flying. Dash leapt high into the
air, his hands held overhead for a moment before he opened his palms
and slammed them down to the ground, intent on smashing Frank once
and for all only to roar in confusion and pain.

Unable to utilize the Overdrive due to his use of his
life-sucking quirk of nature, and unable to use THAT ability at this
time, Frank did the last thing he could think to do and simply
jackknife his way between Dash's palms, allowing the scaled ridges of
his hand to tear his clothes and bits of his anatomy up but in the
process was able to escape the kill attempt, once again tearing off
at high-speed to deliver more blows to Dash's chest and back.

Moving quickly, Frank narrowly avoided Dash's new attack
as his back sprouted a mouth full of jagged teeth, stretching the
length of his back in an attempt to devour Frank again. Groaning,
Frank staggered, realizing he was quickly coming up to his utmost
limit.

Dawn, her senses picking up on Frank's dwindling
strength, immediately ran to him and helped him up as the troll
rolled around on the ground, his body beginning to sprout an extra
limb in his confusion, "Frank...what are we going to do?"

"Wh-WHAT?!" Dawn, suddenly realizing how in
trouble she was, turned as Dash's laserlight-reddened eyes turned
towards her. Roaring, he stalked his body back around on hands and
feet, his knees having turned inward during the last transformation.
Snapping at the air madly, he shook his head violently before leaning
down and eating a mouthful of dirt. The patch of skin shook itself
and began to skitter towards her, only to find itself devoured by
Dash. Dawn made a face as Dash gulped, looked at her then roared
wordlessly, stomping the ground as he made his way towards her.

A magic circle erupted around Dawn as she pointed,
transmuting a thin layer of grease from the grass directly in front
of Dash. Dash's hands and feet slipped out from underneath him and
he belly-flopped onto the greasy surface, keening with a high wail as
he floundered.

Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Dawn once
again cast a magic circle as she chanted, gathering up the necessary
energies to cast a new spell. Getting to his feet, Dash snarled
through clenched teeth as he beheld the Daywatch stomp on the ground
towards her right, holding out her right hand and with a flash of
light and twisting of reality a armored version of herself "slid"
into reality, standing at her right side.

"Mirror, Mirror," she smiled as the
armored version of herself stood in front of her, crossing it's arms
as she continued, "You should stay where you are, sir. Frank
wi-OH!"

She gasped as the troll's claws suddenly erupted from
underneath the armored figure, piercing it all the way through.
Blinking, Dawn finally realized what the troll had done, digging it's
clawed nails beneath the grease not for purchase but to lengthen and
grow them, reaching out to pierce her Armored Guardian.

Staggering backwards, she began to calmly think on
another spell as the troll's claws retracted and it took stock of
itself before calmly stepping out of the grease. Grinning in an evil
caricature of himself, the troll began to gallop towards her, his
arms and legs producing a second set of knees as his maw stretched
forward in his impatience to devour her.

She cast a mage bolt instantly, wanting to distract him
with a quick strike while she charged a new attack spell, only to
feel her usual confidence finally fall as a ki shield erupted red and
angrily around the troll, the sphere of damaging magic sliding off of
it harmlessly to explode against a overturned table. Dash roared and
leapt, taking to the air in a massive pounce, his claws extended..

Preparing her final spell, unwilling to run and wanting
to go down fighting, Dawn screamed her death knell and took a step
forward, one hand surrounded by a globe of pure darkness, the other
of a freezing mist, as she hurled both fists forward.

..wwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllLLLLLLLLL-

So it was that her eyes widened as much as they ever do
as the spells were displaced and blocked completely, Dash's body bent
into a U as it caved in around the Whammy Bar of The Roadbuster as
the car, at top speed, slammed through the doors leading to the lobby
and directly into Dash in a single bound.

In that single, glorious moment of bright pain and
madness, Dash's sentience once again sparked to life and as he hung,
broken, from the hood of his beloved The Roadbuster (you have to say
the whole thing, after all), her gloriously customized wheel about
to catch on his rib, drag him down to the ground and spread his
shoulders and head into troll paste, a single thought flit through
Dash's head as he noted the characteristic glee on Frank's face.

Damn. I could've been reading a book right now. But
no. I had to be a violence junkie.

And he's playing that song again.

Triple dammit!

he
ain't my boy but the brother is heavy

gave
away my possessions and moved into a Chevy

van,
yeah thats the master plan

drive
into the woods and eat corn out the can

"Gone Guru" by Lifeseeker bumped and thumped
out of The Roadbuster's incredible sound system, reverberating
through what was left of Dash's head as he felt the awe-inspiring
power of the car rev through her wheels, tearing his body under her
as she slammed to the ground (dammit, Frank had jumped her out of the
lobby!), her driver's side front wheel grinding his head to a gooey
troll paste.

Just as equally in slow motion Dawn yeeped and doubled
over slightly, her hands covering her crotch reflexively as she
realized her white cotton panties had become thoroughly,
unexplainably smashed, bits of the cotton falling to the ground.

Landing
and laughing, Frank performed a 360 spin, scattering what was left of
the tables and chairs before unloading a massive .357 Smith and
Wesson magnum towards the flopping body of the troll-gened humanoid.
Benediction, the artifact revolver he never left home without, the
metal made from the silver crucifix used to impale and destroy
Dracula himself, thrice-blessed and cooled with holy water. Etched
along the barrel of the gun, the inscription "Blessed are they
who knoweth love" turned a burnished, amber color as the
Artifact revolver roared bloody murder, firing an especially
hand-crafted bullet made by Dash himself: silver casings,
blessed stained glass, oil, rosemary, thyme, silver shavings, and
garlic - there was few that it couldn't outright kill, banish, or
exorcise, and whatever it couldn't they instead were certain to feel
the blasts.

Much like the troll's body, jerking and flopping in both
nerve death and rebirth, as Frank unloaded all six chambers of the
gun into his body. Laughing gleefully, letting the wheels tear the
grass apart, Frank allowed the troll to regenerate and rise up just
enough so he'd feel it as he let The Roadbuster slam into Dash,
spinning and tearing up the carpet in the empty lobby as the troll
wobbled to his knees, waving a large hand.

"I...ugh, I think I'm go-RORGH!"

He flipped head over heels as Frank hit him a third
time, cackling.

The first thing Dash realized was that he hurt all over.
Secondly, he was alive. Third, his head was being cradled on a pair
of slim, well-formed thighs, a soft hand gently stroking at his
cheek. Opening his green eyes, the troll grinned toothily before
rumbling, "I'm glad I died. It's not everyday I get to meet an
angel."

Daywatch Dawn smiled beautifully and continued to stroke
the troll's temple, "Frank told me this would work. He also
told me about your part in all of this, and what you had to go
through. Besides, your girlfriends are on their way now with your
van, apparently to congratulate you?"

About to get up, Dash thought the better of it and
instead groaned, his back still healing - his legs were going to be
paralyzed for a bit more time, "Oof. Well, I DID do a great job
of it. Anyway, the perks outweigh the risks. Y'know: decapitation,
disemboweling, paralysis, having my bone broken."

"Bone?" she blinked as Frank hunkered down
next to her, slapping her hand away and immediately administering a
rough, but thorough, physical. Checking his vital signs and jotting
them down in a leather-bound, small journal he kept in his pocket,
Dash grunted and suffered through the clinical check-up, by now
thoroughly patient with Frank's processes.

Eventually satisfied, Frank slapped him on the chest and
said, "G'wan and git up, idjit. Yer legs work again, and I'm
satisfied you're you. I called Rosette and Juliette to come pick us
up, and Greasy's lost his fool mind and is driving over here with
some of those kids of yours to drive the Die Nasty back while he
recovers The Roadbuster. Heh. Anyway," he helped the troll to
his feet, who resisted only a little, reluctant to leave his
delectable pillow, "How do you feel?"

"Like you freakin' shot me with the Benediction
again," Dash coughed as Frank dusted his back off, "Dude,
did you shoot me again? Jesus Christ, all I remember is being hit
with The Roadbuster-"

"Oh, he only shot you the first time he hit you, he
didn't shoot you the other time he-OH!" Frank swatted at her,
cutting off her remark.

Dash cast a baleful eye at Frank as he turned to face
him, "You hit me what many times?"

Frank grunted, "You were insane. I did what I had
to do. Hey, you're okay, aren't you? It's in my clinical,
professional opinion that what I did was exactly what was needed at
the time."

Dash chuckled, all good nature once again as he clasped
his smaller friend on the shoulder, "Well, I guess all's well
that end's well, yeah? Besides, I'll consider it the balancing
factor for me gettin' new interns!"

Frank frowned, stroking at the stubble on his chin
before a slow smile crept along his brown features. He began to
chuckle, low and evilly, and the Daywatch suppressed a shudder at
what kind of errands he was already thinking up for the young
ex-assassins.

Dash looked around, realizing they were in one of the
hotel rooms on the second floor - a luxury suite. While they were on
a queen-sized bed, there was also a private bathroom and living room
area, as well as a tiny kitchenette. A strange bit of memory flitted
across Dash's ever-regenerating brain and he realized with a start he
had been there before, though years ago, back when he was still
human. Wondering at this, Dash gingerly made his way towards the
bathroom to handle his own private business, leaving the two humans
to the kitchenette segment of the living room.

Frank hummed happily as he found a coffeemaker and a
fresh, unopened can of coffee grind. Radiating a calm happiness, he
set about making a fresh pot, setting up three Styrofoam cups, fresh
cream and sugar on the small bar. Ignoring the alcohol, he rummaged
around the glass case for stirring sticks and other accouterments he
deemed worthy for the post-battle coffee he was going to enjoy.

Sidling up next to him, her Daywatch outfit resplendent
in the early morning light, Dawn watched him as he happily and
quietly rummaged about, a part of her finally able to process all she
had witnessed.

The man who had helped kill one of the greatest threats
on the face of the planet, who snarled in the faces of demons and the
dark denizens of other dimensions, was happily humming brightly as he
watched the pot fill, a look of contentment and accomplishment set on
his face.

She leaned back against the bar and kicked a booted
foot, wondering at what to say. Dawn wasn't a woman given to
unnecessary conversation outside of her scholastic ventures, ever and
always curious and interested in knowledge, not just of magic but of
everything. A true DeFerens, she didn't abide by the idea that Magi
should be defined by their Magia, and studied anything that scratched
her educational itch.

It was what enabled her to understand energies beyond
the magical, and in acquiring lore and knowledge did she learn of the
Demonsidhe, the illegal and infamous drug that had thrice since
nearly crippled the Order and plunge the world into war.

"Yet it never seems to go away, huh?" Frank
grunted, handing the surprised young woman a cup, "No, I didn't
read your thoughts - that'd be against my ethics as a psionic. Naw,
lady, yer tired and not thinking straight. Literally, your Magi
training has come undone...you should get yer head back on before the
Grand Magus shows up, y'know?"

She harrumphed and took the cup from him, sipping at it
gently, surprised to find it exactly the way she liked it - black
with two sugars and a hint of mint, "How did you-"

"Now THAT I did read your mind for," Frank
chuckled wickedly, enduring the good-natured slap she gave his
shoulder. For awhile the two, temporary Darkwatch and newly ascended
Daywatch, shared a cuppa and simply enjoyed the morning, the sound of
the taps turning on alerting them to the hot shower Dash was taken,
followed shortly by a loud, baritone rendition of O Fortuna.

"You listen to that style of music?" Dawn's
electric blue eyes flitted to Frank's own chocolate browns, finding
herself unable to come up with anything better for conversation.

"...you're not used to this, huh?" Frank
laughed gently, holding a hand up to forestall her immediate
response, "I know you're green as Hell, but not to actual
fightin'. I mean killin'. What we do, what we did...you've never
seen anything like that, huh?"

With nothing better to say and woman enough to admit her
own shortcomings, Dawn shrugged. Frank laughed and nodded, "Yeah,
good answer. Yeah. This is the world of the Darkwatch,
darlin'...and the Daywatch. We're the ones who get to play with
madness, to dance in the dark. We're also the ones who get to play
ambassador to all the wicked things, to ensure they know we're not
just fucking around here on our little mudball of a planet.

At least, that's what we WERE for," Frank took a
long sip of coffee before continuing, "Now, the Watch is there
to ensure the other Magi don't get it into their heads that they can
become Gods. The gloves came off during the Havoc, y'see...and the
one thing no one wants to point out is the power spike the whole
world got from it.

Those of us who survived have access to the ability to
shape reality with our will, now. But there's so many wills...and
thusly do people like us become involved. The Grand Magus' personal
assassins. The bodyguards, protecting the rest of the world from our
very own community. Fun, huh?"

Dawn thought on that, simply enjoying the camaraderie.
She had survived an ordeal, and was now being counted as an equal, a
confidante, of the Shopkeepers and it was not an honor she was going
to waste.

"...who are Rosette and Juliette?" she
smiled, a fleeting and beautiful thing, "Are they really his
girlfriends, as you said earlier?"

Frank waved his coffee cup around, grinning, "Two
monster-genes, a mermaid-girl and a Rakshasa-gened. A
tiger-humanoid-girl-thing...got three sets of tits. Both of 'em are
pretty in their own way, though Rosette hates the fuck out of me.
It's not that they're lovers or anything, but I can already tell -
he's gonna be a-courtin' 'em soon, and I KNOW they got eyes for him.
As is, it's a normal thing amongst the monster-gened to take on
multiple lovers and such, especially if they're from their previous
human lifetime or are of a incompatible gene-type. While it's not
like monster-genes can only sleep with their own type, but there are
only limited crossbreeds...and most frown upon it, since a Chimera, a
monster with multiple types, lacks the concentrated punch of a
single-type monster-gene. Fun stuff, huh?

Anyway, they hate it when I call them his girlfriends,
and he'll rail on me 'bout it but all three of 'em ain't stoppin'
me," Frank chuckled, draining his cup and replacing it with
another.

Dawn worried at her bottom lip, almost distracting Frank
with the cuteness as she looked to the side and bounced her pert rump
against the bar, "Well, that's certainly interesting. Y'know,
there's something that's bothering me...the Shop is secure, right?
How did they kidnap Dash in such a manner?"

Frank barked a harsh laugh, once again looking like his
usual curmudgeonly self as he gave her a grin full of dark delight,
"Yeah. Ohhhhh yeah. I ain't of a mind to tell you how, but I
can tell you 'bout the aftermath~! The High Murder who jacked Dash
didn't get far. The Grand Magus told me himself, before the Trial,
that she got nabbed and shipped back, senseless, to the Shop. Suffice
it to say she's under wraps, and I'll be seein' to her indelicate
administrations m'self. Hell, Dash might wanna get in on the action
too, after we rest up...and this time around, it's gonna take me a
bit of healin' before I'm up for anymore serious action. The
Overdrive, y'see...and I used a LOT of it this time around. Shit,"
he frowned into his coffee cup, his thoughts his own for a bit.

Dawn, feeling the need to give him a little space,
stayed quiet and swirled her own coffee around, delighting in the
taste of it on her tongue. Hearing him sigh happily, she looked over
at him and asked, "I have one last question, Darkwatch
Todd....no, Generalist Todd? No one went down and got you out of the
cell for the Trial, and you somehow got around Jerome's last attempt
at stalling you, what with teleporting you to a new cell and keeping
you disoriented...how in the WORLD have you been doing that? Somehow
escaping that trap, but getting out of the cell despite how we've
swapped locking spells, mechanisms-"

Frank chuckled, "Wellll...funny thing that you
mentioned it. There's all sortsa fun ways of gettin' out of a cell
like that, but this time around? I used a way-old trick of mine, and
I'm sure if you go and look you'll find a large humongosaur,
fat-assed friend of mine sleeping his hairy self away on that leather
couch I left there. I swapped places with the jerk as he was passing
through Rancho again."

Dawn blinked, "Why in the world did you do THAT?!"

Frank frowned, thinking back on the wonderful dream he
had, of Aphrodite, the goddess delighting in him, her mouth sweet and
full and beautiful beyond compare.

Carrying the goddess in his arms towards her bed, the
dream flowing seamlessly from in front of the Shop to her own private
rooms within the Asture cult's compound, he lay her down upon a bed
of solid foam, her red hair stark against the samite sheets.

His lips lingered on the crook of her elbow, the
sides of her neck, his tongue thrashing and eliciting moans of pure
ecstasy from her as they undressed each other, the details too real,
to specific to be a dream. He chuckled, his warm breath teasing her
bitten neck.

"What?" She whispered. Though she inspired
love and was beloved, there were only a very few of whom she wanted
their love to be natural. To hear the voice of the goddess was to be
enraptured, and though Frank's will had proven time and again to be
stronger than the ensorcellment, she still whispered or used
telepathy out of respect.

He smiled at her, cupping one of her full breasts for
a moment before tweaking at her nipple with his large fingers,
drinking in the sound of her moan, "Nothin'. Just love you,
'Phro. Love all four of ya...but right now? Just love you."

He leaned in and kissed each eyelid closed,
delighting in her very presence as she accepted him and loved him in
return, as much as a goddess ever could a mortal, and then some. He
leaned in and kissed her, deep and hard, hungry and passionate, their
hands beginning to grab at one another, pulling each other close....

He sighed and stared at his coffee cup, thinking how
he had pulled back and screamed as the goddess had turned into the
incredibly dense, wide form, all bulky with muscle and fat, of
Abbacus Keith, some of his fantastic facial hair still sticking to
Frank's completely aghast face.

"Kiss me, lover boy!!!"

Frank awakened screaming and flailing, scaring the
guards as he began to revv up every single Combat magic spell he knew
at the same time.

"No reason. Just keepin' it balanced between
friends, 's all. So long as balance is kept," he chuckled and
saluted the new Daywatch with his coffee cup, "'s all that
matters to me~!"

In Los Angeles, there are hundreds of hangars,
clustering more the closer you get to one of the skyhooks piercing
the stratosphere.

At any one of these hangars, both thoroughly legal and
rather shady business deals, inbound and outbound shipping, and
private planes can be found coming and going, all logged in and
documented by the Department of Air Control, who claimed dominance
over the entire world's airspace from skyscrapers to low orbit. This
included the administration of the all-important skyhooks, the
smaller skyports, and transballistic traveling systems and
anti-gravity monorail system, having wrest them from the Guild of
Train Workers a few years back.

At one particular hangar, quite close to the L.A.
Skyport, the massive floating island settled down, invisible to radar
and every method of scrying as it had endured it's harrowing midnight
flight. The Reaper landed, her ground crew immediately seeing to the
island's landing needs and coordinating with the ground units dressed
in black, nondescript clothes - the hangar was one used solely for
such clandestine meetings, officially a condemned building on the
outside yet on the inside the latest equipment and gear was stashed,
electronics used to cloak incoming vehicles and stealthily exchange
information with the Department of Air Control's backup computer
database.

A limousine pulled into the mile-wide mouth of the
hangar as the captain of The Reaper identified himself to a
mask-wearing goon, the two immediately sighting each other as a
officer of their own groups. Exchanging information and
introductions, the masked second-in-command (with the given name of
"Aristotle") led the captain towards the limousine.
Holding the door open, Aristotle stood to the side as the Captain
looked on nervously. A brown-haired, pale-skinned Magi of the Valken
House, Captain Bernard Valken had been groomed specifically for his
ability to pilot The Reaper wherever the Patriarch had ordered
single-handedly, able to utilize the Magia necessary in order to
clone himself. It was his narrowness of focus that won him the
coveted and prestigious position as the Patriarch's personal pilot,
and even after death he would not fail his beloved lord. Tall and
broad-shouldered, he had been taught for many hours how he was to
appear to the person in the limousine, the financial backer of the
House of Valken.

Bowing low, he waited until a pair of polished, black
boots entered his vision to dare look up.

Wearing a double-breasted suit jacket and a black
corsage, the young woman, her long platinum hair tied into a
complicated braid and held in place with a pair of golden picks, was
the utter study of beauty. Small of proportion, she was nevertheless
stunning to the young Captain as she gazed about at her crew
interacting with his. Nodding at the efficiency of the scene, she
finally allowed her unsettling gaze to grace his. Her neck was
swanlike, graceful, and every part of her cream-colored three
piece-suit was tailored to her tantalizing form.

One eye violet, the other a storm-gray color, one he
couldn't quite place.

She smiled, her lips begging his attention as she spoke
with a crisp, clean voice, "You have done well, Magus. You have
done very well. Now please destroy The Reaper and the Demonsidhe,
both. The Valken House can expect payment in roughly one hour."

The Captain goggled at her, "Did you
say....destroy? The Reaper? And...the Demonsidhe, ma'am?"

The woman lifted a pale, platinum-haired eyebrow and
stabbed him in the broad chest with a simple rattan cane, "I did
not stutter, young one. The purpose of this exercise has occurred
just the way I planned it, and now we shall dispose of this...ignoble
substance. It offends me," she frowned, managing to make even
that seem like a study in feminine perfection, "The very idea of
bonding oneself to one of those...miserable creatures. So
inartistic, so...unaesthetic. Your Patriarch should have looked to
the Shop for lessons on such matters, hmmm?"

The Captain bristled, "Madame-"

Morrow Kind sighed, tugging at the white gloves he wore
over his slim, slender fingers, "Also, I'm not a woman. This
may be our first time meeting one another, but certainly you can do
better then assume?"

Bernard's eyebrows rose as he felt his entire world turn
sideways, "Oh...uh...yes. Sorry...sir."

Morrow smiled beatifically, noting the effect he had on
the young man. Turning back to the limousine he swayed slightly, his
feminine features taking in with delight the destruction of The
Reaper, and the nearly thousand demon souls locked within the drugs
in the belly of the miniature island.

The Captain, his eyes never leaving Morrow, leapt to
take Aristotle's place and close the door, kneeling down by the
window as it rolled down. Aristotle chuckled, adjusting the lapels
of his black button-up shirt before turning back to gaze upon the
workings of the ground crew and flight crew, all Order-trained magi.

Morrow beamed, stroking at the delicate point of his
knee, tilting his head slightly so his violet eye could see better.

"Hmmm...tell me, Captain. Do you think Frank would
be pleased with me, right now?" His voice shivered for a
moment, the air about his luscious mouth rippling with power,
"Or...vexed?"

The Captain frowned, jealousy stamped plainly upon his
face at the thought of a rival for Morrow's affections. Despite
that, he answered honestly, unable to lie to his new master, "No,
sir. I think he'd be whatever you want him to be."

Aristotle turned his face towards Bernard, chuckling
behind the blank, eyeless mask before turning back to the various
spells and projectiles hurtled towards The Reaper, watching with a
barely-suppressed shiver how the massive island of metal exploded,
imploded, and melted, torn apart by the living Circle created by
their people. Morrow's people now, all of them.

Frank dug his toes into the ground, employing a basic
Shield spell in front of him, his connection to Gregorio revealing to
him that the familiar had been banished in the interrum. Though this
wouldn't harm Gregorio for too long, this would keep him out of the
action for a couple of days, unable to reform himself within the
physical realm.

Huh,
at least he won't get in our way then,
Frank noted to Kitty, who continued to slowly chant to himself,
concentrating.

Rising from the crater, the explosion having blown apart
the barrier as well as the Dais he had initially feared, Valken
strode towards Frank and simply breathed, his aura seeking a ley line
to replenish his mana despite knowing, intellectually speaking, that
there was none to be found until the second barrier came down. The
collected magelight reflected brightly off of his glowing shield, the
Mage Armor and water shell combining as the defensive spell broke
down, forcibly combining with the Dais artifact.

Valken grinned, hugging himself for a moment,
practically nude as the shell had been forced against his flesh from
the neck-down, "You just sealed your own demise, Todd. This
anomalous armor of mine is without flaw - there is no spell that can
penetrate it's defenses now. You may not see it, you dirty plebian,
but the very nature of your own shadow enforced this! I can hear it,
you know..." for a moment Jerome's hawk-like eyes glazed over
with the madness of magic overdose, "The lives the geas has
influenced. The history of the thing! It's mine now, just like the
Demonsidhe - yes, I can admit it now. What can you do to me now that
you've helped create the greatest known Mage Armor in all of known
history, Frank Todd...The Generalist!"

Frank lifted an eyebrow, snapping his fingers as he
responded, "I guess...this."

Valken looked about, seeing nothing at all happen.
Grinning, he took a step forward and plummeted to the ground, landing
hard on his face.

Frank began to laugh, long and hard, gripping at his
stomach while pointing at the prone ex-Legatus, "OH! OH WOW!
OH FUCK! MAN, are you a barrel of laughs, Legs!"

"Wh-WHAT?! But...I saw...you didn't cast a spell,
you didn't do anything!!!" Valken shook his head, the only part
of him able to move at all, the rest of his body completely frozen,
"What did you DO?!"

Frank wheezed with laughter, doubling over as he wiped a
tear from his eye, "Oh, OH! Is this your plan?! To kill me
with this, makin' me laugh m'self to death? Here, lemme try this-"
he snapped again, and Valken immediately scrambled to his feet, eyes
wild.

"How...HOW!" Valken rushed at Frank,
attempting to close the distance only to fall, once again, the
instant Frank snapped his fingers.

Frank's sneer turned into a vicious snarl as he
toyed with the ex-Legatus, allowing him to rise and attempt to either
rush Frank or escape, only to send him sprawling to the ground,
paralyzed at a mere snap of his fingers.

"It's simple, Leggy," Frank chuckled from
where he sat on the Valken House's throne, "You said it
yourself, and it's like you like to say all the goddamn time.

I'm not a Magus."

He waved a gloved hand around at the assemblage, "THEY
are Magi. They live, and breathe, and work for the Code and by their
promise to the Four Elements you people put so much stock and faith
in. The very same ones you feel you can ignore, that somehow you're
above.

I'm not a Magus, and I wasn't hired to be a Magus.

I'm a Shopkeeper, Jerome Valken, ex-Legatus," Frank
walked over to the prone Magi, watching the other man's eyes fill
with sheer fright and humiliation as he held up a hand, palm extended
towards him as he continued, "We're the masters of disaster, the
innovators of violence. We are the torturers and madmen, the
boogeyman amongst monsters. We are the Kings of Angels and the
Sultans of Swing.

We are Death, Jerome Valken. Your fate was sealed
the moment we accepted you as our target."

Jerome, Patriarch of the Valken House, gazed upwards,
tears filling his eyes. His plans, long in foresight, had never
realized this one basic rule.

"I hit you with a simple psionic ability, earlier,"
Frank's voice carried to him as if from a great distance away, "When
I established a link between you and I with that first kick. Y'see,
a Magus thinks the only thing in the world IS the Four Elements,
magic and Magia and spells and bullshit.

But, y'see, it can be easily trumped by psionics. Or ki
energy. Or spiritual power.

All four of the energies can be used against one
another, Valken," he chuckled, "And I've been linked to you
with my Hookshot since the get-go of this, buddy boy, draining you
slow and steady throughout this battle. Hell, you had QUITE the
store of magical power, ya did! Kudos to that. The real trap was
exactly this though - to ensure that so many innnnnnteresting forms
of energy are all about you, all this magic and the regalia-" he
waved a hand in the general direction of each item as he ticked them
off, "and the THRONES and the fucking Dais that was last used,
like, a century a-fucking-go. All these sources of power and you
couldn't feel a teeny-tiny ribbon of will piercing your soul, one
that even a novice Psionic or those fuddy-duddies over at the
d'Balthazar house with their granny panties could've spotted."

"HEY!" Ethel d'Balthazar, floating within
earshot, suddenly broke out of her trance and the gestalt connection,
"I'll have you know that we d'Balthazars are the PREIMER-"

"Yadda yadda yadda, see?" Frank laughed,
waving at the older woman as she continued to rant at a distance from
them, "See what you did, Valken? Now instead of dying with my
dulcet, creamy voice in your ears, yer gonna die with Ethel screaming
her fool head off.

'Nighty night, Jerry. Time to die."

Valken's bottom lip trembled and, with the sound of the
screaming amphitheater, thirsting and hungry for his blood, for
vengeance, for retribution against his failed plans, he closed his
eyes tightly and roared two words at them all.

"f-F...FUCK
YOUUUU!"

The barrier shattered, the magical energies of the
entire location coming completely undone as explosions rocked the
amphitheater, the roof directly above them raining debris down upon
them.

Several of the Valken House rushed forward, many of them
on high alert for just such a thing as they cast scattered Defensive
spells: barriers and shields of various geometric shapes sprang up
overhead, dotting the amphitheater assembly here and there.
Summonings and more sprang to life as the various students sought to
protect themselves, sending the various monstrosities and
otherworldly creatures, ghosts and poltergeists up to either redirect
debris, destroy it, or take the blow and disappear with the falling
object in tow.

Frank slashed a hand through the thick air, dispelling
the dust and smoke from around him while taking stock of the
situation, looking around wildly as he realized Valken had
disappeared.

"Looking...for me, Frank?"

Frank's eyes widened and he forced his body to relax,
drawing his arms up swiftly and taking the powerful blow to his
forearms, the sensation of freefall confusing him for a moment before
he landed on the ground, tumbling head over heels before landing
painfully on his back.

Grunting and groaning, his training kicked in and he
immediately curled up into a fetal position, blocking the launched
kick with both his arms and his legs, the humongous, armored foot
catching him square across his forearms and shins.

"G-GAH!" As if from a distance, he heard his
own battered body make a strange sound as his back impacted squarely
against the d'Balthasar throne, heavy with pure silver. He crumpled
to the ground, his eyes wide as he beheld the monstrosity that had
kicked him.

"...fucking. Demonsidhe."

Jerome Valken roared, his voice made thick and low from
the new steel-like bio-metal exoskeleton his body had produced, the
chemical Demonsidhe bonding him, body and soul, with the Demon whose
contract he had signed. Standing three feet taller, his body was
covered from head to toe in green, red, and silver platelets, his
flesh thicker than leather and harder then even the Mage Armor it had
absorbed in his transformation. His arms were corded with thick,
ropy muscle, his body thickening from the process as well, his hands
and feet transformed into three-digit, reptilian claws. Around it's
head a deep cape and cowl had been drawn, obscuring its' face from
view save for the foul ichor it slavered and drooled over the
scarf-like cowl wrapped around it's neck for purchase. Drawing deep
from the well of the nearby ley line, the new creature filled itself
with raw magic power, forgoing completely any of the normal processes
to create usable mana.

The Demonsidhe that was Jerome Valken roared,
armor-plated mandibulae reaching beyond the confines of the dark
cloak, his red, glowing eyes opening wide.

Demonsidhe. The abominable combination of Magus and
Demon, their magical powers combined and magnified.

An amazing juggernaut of magical fury and horrible
malice.

The process of transformation shrugged off all pain,
damage, suffering, illness, and whatever lingering spells and
damaging skills Frank had placed on him as well.

"First you have to somehow heal your broken back in
time to stop me!" Valken chortled, his new body shaking with it
as, up above, spotlights replaced the magelights as a massive airship
shadowed the squalling amphitheater, a massive island of metal half
as wide as the amphitheater rooftop and supported by four powerful
rotors - able to cut through the air with it's beak-life front as
easily as it could hover. A rope ladder was thrown down and Valken
leapt, grabbing onto it with one hand and flipping Frank off with the
other.

"While we BOTH have to start from square one, at
least I get a God Mode cheat and you don't! HAH! Frank Todd, The
Generalist, I bid thee a fo-"

Jerome Valken had completed the process to become a
Demonsidhe, one of the most feared alchemical monstrosities known to
the Order, a powerhouse even amongst the Fallen Thrones, those
ex-Angels who now lived as Demons. Jerome Valken, once the Legatus
of the Order of Magi, had risen to one of the highest positions one
could within an order devoted to the secret gathering of knowledge
and interdimensional power.

The Patriarch. He who would have been the Daywatch, had
the Grand Magus and his cohorts not named one before he could take
her place, now powerless to even challenge them now that he was
offically culled from their ranks.

Yet despite how he had looked into the very ether of the
darkness that lay between worlds with his own naked eyes, nothing
prepared him as he witnessed Frank get up to his feet, dust his
khakis off and crack his neck as if his back had never been broken.

Frank frowned, his eyes burning with hatred as his
shades crumbled to the ground, a sad casualty of activating the most
powerful of Artifacts on his person, "You broke my shades, you
sonofabitch."

Scrambling up the rope ladder towards the humongous
aircraft, its' four rotors revving up faster as it lifted up both
men, unseen hands from above pulling the rope in, Valken kept his
face upwards, climbing as fast as his magically-empowered new body
could muster, hearing Frank's constant litany of cursing and violent
promises grow closer despite him.

Too shocked to even wonder at Frank's sudden
regeneration, the guards who piloted and staffed his "backup
plan," dubbed The Reaver, pulled him in then stumbled backwards
as he turned, nearly slashing at several of them with the blades from
his pauldrons. Reaching out with a sharp-nailed claw, he roared with
vicious intent only to look out from the open bay door and looked...

At nothing.

He blinked, gripping the bay doors, the ground already
at a frightening height as The Reaver screamed upwards, every sleek
inch of her powered by the very magical energies harnessed by the
Demonsidhe body he now utilized. Looking left and right, mastering
his own fear, his eyes widened and he slowly turned, hearing the last
of the present guards fall to the ground.

Frank looked up from where he stood, a fresh pair of
shades on his face, the blood from the latest cranium he had smashed
already burning from his fists as the Maximum Gloves continued to
feed ki energy directly into his body. Snarling, he pointed a thick
finger at Valken, growling, "And WHAT is he doing here?!"

Jerome smiled, or something close to a facsimile of it,
from within the depths of his shadowy cowl as he yanked the bundle of
unconscious troll to his feet, dangerously close in front of the bay
door.

Frank lowered his hands, the edges of his shoulders
slightly blurry as he growled harder, "What...is DASH...doing
here?! What...have you DONE...to my FRIEND?!!!"

Jerome cackled with wicked, malicious glee, holding him
out through the bay door so his clawed feet dangled, his strength
more than enough to hold the trussed-up troll, bound hands and feet
by simple rope, in the air, "This. This is my ultimate backup
plan, you filthy urchin. The Reaper, the greatest artifact to ever
be built artificially! And now, I'm off to go deliver this and the
cargo of Demonsidhe drug to my buyer! So. Here's the deal,"
Jerome gave Dash a shake, eliciting a snore from the still-sleeping
troll-gene, "You can dive after your friend or stay here and
kill me. Sounds like a pl-"

"I'm going to kill you if you let him go,"
Frank stated with a cold finality, "You're dead."

Jerome lifted an armored eyebrow and chuckled, "So
be it!"

He turned and watched as Dash fell, calling Frank's
bluff as The Reaper pierced the stratosphere, the bay door beginning
to close. So it was with a complete and utter shock as, almost in
slow motion, he found himself tumbling through the air as well.

A Demonsidhe. One of the worst, artificially-created
terrors known to this realm. A creature that should stand head and
shoulders above all other monster-genes.

And yet.

He spun through the air, ignoring the troll as he
fastened his eyes on the speeding form of Frank as, missile-like, the
human rocketed toward him.

It was then that he finally realized something, a
conversation they had had back when they were merely classmates
rather than bitter rivals and enemies.

"It's simple really," Frank, younger and
having just become a teacher within the Order, laughed. They had
luncheoned in one of the common rooms that day, a garden park that
was a favorite hang-out spot of the other teachers and more than a
few of the more gifted students.

"Well.
Let's say, well, the Order in and of itself. We're required to
register EVERY single one of the Magia we know, right?"

"Well,
yes," Jerome looked back at him with a bored expression, "Is
this your issue with the War Party again? I get it, I get it - you
agree with them about registration versus personal freedom-"

"But
that's just it!" He laughed, "Even if we ARE being given
that one point if we stand down - the right to not have to register
our fifth Magia, I'd just as lief just LIE about it!"

"Lie?
To the Order?" Jerome laughed derisively, "Oh, you ARE
rich, young Magus Todd!"

Lost
in his memories, the younger Frank grunted as Jerome gazed upon the
glowing fist already within reach of his armored, insectoid face,
"I'm
not a Magus. I'm a Generalist."

In the space between seconds, where even freefall stood
still, Frank grunted, "I'm THE Generalist!"

Time
stand still~!

When the storm hit, Jerome's only perception was of
pain. Unending, unceasing pain as Frank became a whirlwind around
him, the Overdrive pushed by his berserker fury to a blazing level 3,
focusing only on the Time Stop. Where usually doing so on the ground
would have torn his all-too-human musculature, in the sky things were
completely different for Frank.

With Kitty casting the spells from his store of Air
Magia, Frank found his body encased within a shell that negated much
of the G Forces, torquing his body about mid-air, firing off spells
and delivering three punches at time each time he used the Overdrive
more than strain enough on him.

It was in such a manner that he was able to deliver five
sets of three straight punches each in the span of only one second
from all directions, grabbing the reeling Demonsidhe and tearing his
cowl off, ignoring the terrible gashes opening up across his own
flesh, the backlash of so much Overdrive use already taking it's toll
as it devoured the regenerative abilities of the Maximum Gloves at an
incredible pace.

Frank ignored the sensation of terminal velocity, the
horror that Valken had turned himself into. The red glowing eyes,
multi-faceted, his flesh turning armored, the tendrils that had
replaced his hair. The Demonsidhe blinked, it's eyes glazed
over...and the Demon he had contracted screaming from within, willing
Frank to not recognize it. As insectoid as Jerome currently looked,
it's body was humanoid until the lower half came into view, very much
so a four-footed reptile, terminating with a long, spiked tail. Like
all Angels and Fallen Thrones, the creature was breathtakingly
winged, it's shoulder muscles and back muscles exaggerated and
bulky-looking to accommodate for them. The creature wailed and felt
along the walls of its' spiritual prison, doing anything to hide
itself from Frank's piercing gaze.

To no avail.

Frank gave a sly grin before roaring directly at the
creature, "TARIEL! I SEE YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" Laughing,
the right Maximum Glove burning to ashes as the Overdrive sought to
offset the balance with even more living energy, Frank reached into
his pocket and slipped another Artifact on.

Holy Diver, the silver knuckles he kept on his person.
Crafted from a mixture of blessed silver metal and steeped in holy
water instead of regular water, the knuckles themselves bore eldritch
script - Frank's own handiwork, and one of his best anti-Demon
artifacts.

Anti-quite a bit of things, really. As an Artifact,
they were able to affect the insubstantial and the spiritual, rumored
to have a force that can even strike at entities a cross dimensions.
The Purification Blow, the “Ritual of Fuck Off Already,” began
the moment he slipped them onto his knuckles, and as his fist
whistled through the air to slam into Valken, and through him Tariel,
a stream of glowing latin words flowed out of the Holy Diver, quickly
lost to the wind as they plummeted towards the ground. While the
after-effect of the Holy Diver was incredibly useful, allowing him to
both exorcise and banish a target while creating a boundary that
stopped them from fleeing this realm and the anchor they were
attached to, there was little for the boundary to do but float into
the ether and fade away, useless in such a situation.

But Frank wasn't looking to create a boundary, at that
point he was more than happy to simply pummel at Valken's armored
face with the silver knuckles, laughing wildly as he watched the
demon Tariel writhe within it, bound yet scrabbling to escape anyway.
Though he had exorcised and banished Tariel, the creature could
still be summoned, it's power used by anyone strong enough to bind it
to their will.

And this wasn't just a normal Binding either. The
Demonsidhe process was irreversible, and that meant there was nowhere
for Tariel to go now, no way for it to easily escape Frank's waxing
wrath.

Thankful for the shade's protection, bound to his skull
by invisible filaments of ki energy, Frank gauged the distance
between the rapidly rising ground and themselves. Punching Tariel
and Jerome one more time, he left the Demonsidhe fall to it's own
fate, kicking away from it with a shove of his legs and a minor Coast
spell from Kitty, the duo working perfectly in synch to send Frank
towards Dash. Rocketing into the troll, they collided while Frank
scrabbled for purchase, doing nothing but upsetting Dash's combat
fatigues for a moment before passing him by completely.

Growling, Kitty fired off more Coast spells, relying on
their simplicity and the short burst of air they provided to help
rocket Frank towards Dash once again. Reaching out, Frank felt the
pit of his stomach turn ice-cold as he realized his left Maximum
Glove artifact had completely burned away, the Overdrive still hungry
and seeking for more resources to draw from. Realizing he was going
to have one helluva comeuppance for so many uses of the Overdrive, he
grasped Dash by the collar and hauled him in close, quickly untying
his hands and using it to tie their belts together. Using Kitty's
spells, Frank repositioned them both so the troll was directly under
him, feeling the wicked, strange energy of the Overdrive rev into
life once more as he prepared a complicated series of actions.

In
THEORY, this'll work!
Kitty panted within him, slightly turned on from the excitement and
danger, If
this doesn't work, I love you Frank!

Frank closed his eyes, murmuring aloud, his words lost
to the wind as the ground sped towards them even faster than before.

Time...stand
still!

The Overdrive, already pumped to level 4, took a
sideways twist, allowing him to slow down Time to his perception and
movements without ramping up to the final lethal level. Kitty,
feeling the main persona begin his work, immediately fired off a Hard
Air spell from the last of their magical reserves, creating a solid
cube of pressurized air directly parallel to them.

Even though he seemed to have all the time in the world,
Frank gritted his teeth until his gums bled, taking forever to reach
out with his legs and connect solidly with the cube of air, passing
them by with a strange dual slowness and quickness.

Feeling the muscles of his legs explode, his knees
threatening to buckle, both personae felt a moment of utter elation
as their velocity immediately changed direction as Frank attempted to
change their landing pattern towards a swimming pool he had spotted
earlier and cut some of their falling speed down.

Spreading himself so his body would land atop Dash's, he
willed himself to relax completely, an old meditative trick kicking
in and allowing him to focus only on a minute point of Dash's thick
throat, completely ignoring the shock as they landed square in the
center of the pool, water rushing to encase them, displaced by their
meteoric impact...and the sickening squelch as the Troll's single
bone, jointless and rubbery, took the full impact.

Valken awoke to screaming, his own and the Demon whose
power he had coveted, craved even. Tariel gibbered insanely within
him, and he wondered for a moment if the much-vaunted strength of the
Daemon Magia users were, once again, more myth and fiction than any
matter of truth.

Groaning, his voice still a new mystery and wonder to
him, he slowly worked his way to his knees, happy to be alive still.
Crawling out of the crater, he immediately recognized the hotel he
had crash-landed through, tearing out a chunk of the rooms closest to
the outside of the complex, apparently doing no damage save
superficial, before landing next to the pool itself, one that was
strangely out of water.

Staggering away from the crater, his new eyes took in
the strangely 360 degree view all around him, turning his head this
way and that to marvel at it all.

He had survived. He had WON!

He alternated between hysterical laughter and coughing,
waving a hand about to clear the smoke that had erupted from the
impact. With his new senses he clearly tracked the treacherous new
Daywatch as Magus Tanelin burst from around the hotel, calling out
orders to other Magi nearby. Dispelling the smoke and dust with a
simple cantrip, he grinned to himself, already relishing the look of
shock and surprise on her pretty face.

So it was that he found himself rearing back as the dust
cleared and directly in front of him, standing tall, Dash cracked his
knuckles and grinned wickedly. Slightly in front of the troll, the
Holy Diver silver knuckles equipped onto his right hand, Frank tilted
his head, popping it slightly before looking back at Jerome.

He made a wet sound as he ran his tongue slowly against
his teeth, relishing the look of shock and surprise on Jerome's face
and uttered, "Yeap."

For all her years ahead of her, Daywatch Tanelin knew
she would never again see the spectacle of the gruesome twosome
suddenly disappearing, the Demonsidhe attempt to reach towards her
only to flip head over heels, slam to the ground, something invisible
slam him further into the ground, creating yet another crater, before
rising up as if held by the head, two chairs appear out of thin air
to slam against either side of him before the two Shopkeepers
rebounded from his form, both landing hard as if they had performed a
dual drop-kick.

To the sped-up perception of the two Shopkeepers, they
both activated the ki ability "Combined Force," allowing
them to share the same speed and strength for exactly one second.
That single second stretched to eternity and, within this space of a
second, were able to slam their favorite techniques into a single
target.

It was exactly the technique they had rehearsed for just
such an occasion, both realizing instinctively the need to do a
psychotic amount of physical damage in order to shock the
Demonsidhe's system and prevent it from emergency regeneration or
reinforcement of it's already incredible defenses.

In quick succession, Frank slipped behind Jerome to aid
Dash's drop-kick, sending the creature to the ground. Frank, moving
quickly, grabbed the creature's clawed feet as Dash leapt into the
air. Frank leapt up slightly and brought his own feet in front of
him, slamming them into Jerome's groin as Dash landed hard at the
same time, his knee breaking the armor plating around the
Demonsidhe's neck. Frank spun to his feet and grabbed Dash's
outstretched hand, yanking him to his feet and the other side of
himself. Dash, in turn, yanked Frank back, allowing his arm to
stretch a bit as Frank dug in and rushed forward, allowing the troll
to slingshot him overhead and directly down into Jerome's stomach
with the points of his knees, the sheer force of the Human Hammer
technique smashing the creature further into the ground.

Getting up quickly, Frank grabbed the creature's head as
Dash caught his feet, the duo heaving upwards and sending Jerome
flying only to suddenly snap back down, pancaking him deeper into the
hole. Grabbing him by the scrapped remains of his cloak, Frank
forced the creature to his feet, ignoring his own violent pains as
Dash swiftly handed him a metal folding chair.

Slamming his face into it twice, the clean, bright pain
driving away the fog of fatigue and the far duller pain of the
Overdrive within him, Frank turned Dash as the troll slammed the
chair twice into the ground with wicked glee.

Spinning, the duo slammed the chairs against the front
and back of Jerome's head before leaping up and drop-kicking the
chairs simultaneously, breaking both the creatures' head and the
Combined Force technique at the same time.

Jerome groaned once, fell to his knees then onto his
back, his joints exploding in a fan of greenish blood, unable to take
the strain dealt to him anymore. He gazed upwards dumbly, both the
man and the demon within him completely stunned by the attacks they
had suffered.

Frank grunted, getting to his feet slowly at first until
Dash landed next to him sprightly, helping his smaller friend up with
a series of stupid chuckles. Frank looked at him strangely at first,
then joined him in the stupid chuckles until both suddenly did a
little jump and stomped onto the ground, turning to face Jerome's
prone form.

Stomping the ground to a beat and clapping their hands,
they did their ritual troll dance of victory, ending it by slapping
their own chests once with an eruption of sound before leaning down
to jam all four of their middle fingers at Jerome's insectoid face.

She stopped short as Frank held up his right hand to
her, the scene suddenly cold and vicious as Frank's eyes fastened
onto Jerome.

She bit her lip, recognizing this look. This was the
gaze of a predator, done toying with their food.

This was the look of a predator about to strike.

Dash tittered, pain and battlelust still raging through
him as he bit his own finger, drawing blood before chuckling out,
"You gonna do it? You gonna do it Frank? This is the guy,
right?!"

"Yeah, bro," Frank spoke evenly, calmly
despite the edge in his voice, "This is the guy. And yeah. I'm
gonna do him. Right here-" he knelt down, Jerome busted back,
the aura about his right hand becoming visible as something twisted
and wicked welled up within him, "-and right now. You're going
to die, Jerome. You're going to die in pain, and afraid - all full
of terror. Just what the assignment calls for."

"h-" Valken wheezed, his body broken and
busted beyond repair, even from a Demonsidhe's infernal engine,
"...how? How did...what..."

Frank grabbed him with his left hand, his right held
overhead and slightly behind him, the strange energy of the Overdrive
fighting with an even stranger, darker energy, alien to Jerome but
known to Tariel. His own eyes were closed for a moment as he hovered
on the razor's edge between life and death, exulting in the exquisite
feel of his own body wrecked, his mana reserves and mental faculties
on the brink of full-blown breaking. On every level, on every plane
he was aware of, he hurt. He hurt deep.

And he reveled in that pain, in this single moment where
he was ever as close to death as he had ever been.

Each time was always the first time.

Each
time was never enough.

Valken's eyes widened slightly as Frank's opened up, the
chocolate brown transformed into a bright gold. On the psychic
plane, Frank's humanoid aura slammed his Hookshot directly into
Valken's face, infiltrating the man's Ajna chakra and changing it's
indigo color to that of Frank's own aura.

Black, and sharp with violence.

"You never stood a chance, you elitist scumbag,"
Frank leaned in close and growled, devouring the sight of Jerome's
and Tariel's fear as he force-fed them his own memories, his voice
rising to a furious pitch thick with hatred and malice, "Neither
of you have EVER stood a chance because I have faced FAR WORSE THEN
YOU HAVE EVER KNOWN EXISTED!!!!!"

Tariel and Jerome, combined as they were, knew now why
neither could ever beat the Shop.

Through Tariel, Jerome saw and knew what it was Frank
had survived.

Perris County.

An endless night, unnatural and horrible, the very walls
of reality having been forcibly tainted by It's presence.

Eleven saintly shrouded men stood dark against the
blackened sky all about them, the charred remnants of houses burned.

Atop a midden, a pile of bodies so twisted and made
wrong by It's very presence, It sat and gloated, glutting on chaos
and violence.

Within this world, there are three types of known
Demons. Fallen Thrones of both fictional and non-fictional, yet
worshiped, variety. Interdimensional travelers, who may or may not
be malicious in intent. And then you had the ones who had the most
devastating impact on reality itself, the entire world shuddering
under the presence of one materialized in the physical plane.

Humans cannot become angels, but both humans and
angels can become demons. So it was, and so it had always been. But
there was none worse than a psychic human soul that had become
stagnated and bitter, trapped within this side of the Veil and unable
to move on.

Sometimes these pathetic souls were worshiped as gods,
or demons, tied to an artifact or a location.

Sometimes all it took was a sneeze, or a passerby simply
glancing at them and actually seeing them. Always, it was just one
little push that was needed to allow these poor, unfortunate souls to
slip into their own vat of bitter negativity and arise, twisted and
ascendant, able to destroy and warp every level of energy and matter
within their range.

The Psyker Demon.

The men turned and killed one another, and for a moment
Jerome was each of the men, his mind completely under the control of
the Psyker. Tariel gibbered madly, seeking to kill himself and
Jerome with him simply to escape the horror they underwent as their
perception altered.

They had become Frank Todd, shortly before becoming The
Generalist...but they were themselves, merely in Frank's place.

Unlike the real battle in Perris County, California,
during the Havoc of 2012 the battle was short-lived and horrible,
all-consuming in it's terror and hatred, tearing through Jerome and
Tariel both with a finality that nearly killed them on it's own.

But Demonsidhes were tougher than that.

Jerome's body relaxed, finally succumbing to the damage
wrought upon it on every level. For a moment he spoke as if with two
throats, the Demon and the Man within him whispering, "Please.
Please stop hating me. Please. Just...ple-"

Frank's right hand clamped tightly down onto Jerome's
transformed face, then he squeezed, crushing the creature's
mandibulae as his twisted quirk of nature began it's gristly work.

Frank's full lips twisted into a dark snarl as he said,
"Die."

And with that he absorbed Valken's life, his soul,
draining every ounce of the creature that was a strange combination
of Tariel and Jerome Valken and devouring every memory, every choice
he ever made. As he did so he felt his own life triple in size, his
aura enormous as he glutted on Valken's very existence.

Behind him, Dash roared his approval, shaking his head
and arms skyward as he triumphed in their victory, debris and flame
raining down behind them from above.

"ALL HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL THE SHOP!!!!!!!!"

To Frank's heightened, abuse senses he stood up all too
slowly, slightly in front of the troll as he whispered far too loud,
"All hail the Shop."